Table of Contents
Chapter 2 - Why This Unusual Structure?
Chapter 4 - Towards A Solution
Chapter 3 - Part I
It is also said that the earlier chapters of the Bible are like the last chapters. They are, but with this important difference: the one is a narrative, the other a vision. A comparison shows the difference of style. In the Book of Revelation we read, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away . . . and I heard a voice out of heaven saying . . .” Such phrases as “I turned to see”, “after this I looked and lo”; the constantly repeated “I saw” are entirely absent from the Genesis account. Dr. S. R. Driver (Genesis, p. 23) stated, “The narrative contains no indication of its being the relation of a vision (which in other cases is regularly noted, e.g. Amos 7-9; Isa. 6; Ezek 1, etc.); it purports to describe not appearances (‘And I saw and behold . . .’), but facts (‘Let the earth . . . and it was so’), and to substitute one for the other is consequently illegitimate.” I agree entirely with his statement that “it purports to describe not appearance but facts”.
A still less satisfactory way of dealing with the narrative is to say that it must be read as poetry. It is sufficient to cite Dr. Ginsburg’s comment on this, “there is in this chapter none of the peculiarities of Hebrew poetry”. It is prose, not poetry, and purports to be an account of what ‘God said’.
The Antedate or Artificial Week Theory
Dr. Driver having adopted the theory that the Genesis narrative in its present form is a comparatively late production and that the Fourth Commandment pre-dated it, some such explanation became necessary. But I suggest that it is a most remarkable fact that the alleged unknown writer of Genesis does not mention the word ‘sabbath’. Surely he would have done so if he had been engaged on such an attempt to ‘fake’ the narrative as described by Dr. Driver. Not to have done so would be fatal to his purpose. This antedate theory generally rejects the Genesis narrative as real history. It is said by this school of ‘critics’ that the creation narrative is nothing else than the common stock of oral traditions of the Israelite nation which had been originally borrowed from Babylonian sources and that it was put into writing about the eighth century B.C. That this is not the case will be seen in later chapters.
The Myth or Legend Theory
There is also the person who tells us that religious truthfulness and scientific truthfulness are not the same thing. If what is meant by this is that Biblical and scientific explanations of events are not at all likely to be made in the same way, we agree; but if it means that the truth of one may in reality be misleading error, then we disagree. Surely Truth is one and is not divided against itself.
I submit that all these theories and ‘explanations’ fail to determine in a complete and reasonable way what God did for six days and why he ceased on the seventh day.
What then, is the explanation?
Before an answer can be given we must enquire precisely what the Fourth Commandment says and also what Genesis says. In the remaining part of this chapter we will examine the words used in the Fourth Commandment, leaving the Genesis account to the next chapter.
If words mean anything, it is obvious that the revelation from God on Mount Sinai was of the greatest possible significance. I do not stay to discuss this with those who would deny its actual occurrence. Nowhere in the Old Testament is there anything to equal it in awe and solemnity; if the nineteenth chapter of Exodus is read, it will be seen how important was the occasion. Nearly two centuries had passed without any exceptional revelation from heaven, then we read, “And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the Mount and be there; and I will give thee tables (tablets) of stone, and a law, and Commandments which I have written” (Exod, 24:12). Those ‘Ten words’ thereafter had a special significance. “Thus saith the Lord” prefaces the utterances of the prophets, yet a clear distinction was drawn between these prophetic revelations and the giving of the law on Sinai; a difference not so much in degree of the revelation as in its status and circumstances. The law had been given by God speaking ‘face to face’ with Moses; it is said to have been personally communicated to him in a most exceptional manner.
When did the seventh day’s rest originate? There can be no doubt that it was introduced at a very early date (that this could not be the first day after the creation of the first man will later become evident seeing that many important incidents are stated to have occurred between the creation of the man and that of the woman). But obviously it had lost much of its proper significance by the time of the Exodus, for on Mount Sinai God called upon the Israelites to “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy”. Specific directions were then given as to the manner in which it should be kept. Unlike the early Babylonians the Egyptians apparently did not keep a seventh day’s rest so that the Israelites who had been slaves in Egypt had not been permitted this rest. The fact that the seventh day had a recognized significance, prior to the introduction of the sabbath, may be clearly seen by reference to Exodus 16 where the cessation of the manna is recorded; for this incident happened before the Fourth Commandment was given. Moreover, evidence of the institution of an observance of the seventh day may also be seen during the Flood (Gen. 7:4; 8:10-11). The division into weeks can also be seen in the history of Jacob (Gen. 29:27-28). There is however no sufficient reason to suppose that the Patriarchs were required to keep the seventh day in precisely the same way as the Israelites were commanded to keep the sabbath after the giving of the law. (3)
Precisely what does the Fourth Commandment say about the seven days? The Authorized version translates it: “For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.” First we notice that in the Hebrew version we find that the word ‘in’ does not appear. And the best manuscripts of the Septuagint version omit ‘the sea’, in editions such as Professor Swete’s Cambridge Septuagint these words form no part of the text. Moreover, the word ‘seventh’ is found instead of ‘sabbath’.
The word translated rested, like the same word in Genesis 2:3, simply means ceased, or desisted. It does not necessarily mean the rest of relaxation; for this, quite a different Hebrew word is used. In Arabic the word sabbatu means to cut off, to interrupt, and in Assyrian to cease.
Another word which needs comment is the Hebrew word malach translated work. It expressly refers to ordinary word and Dr. Driver renders it business; it simply means occupation. Delitzsch says of it, “It is not so much a term denoting a lighter kind of labour as a general comprehensive term applied to the performance of any task whether easy or severe.” The idea of creation is not in any way inherent in it.
Finally the precise significance of the word translated made must be understood, because the meaning of the passage which has caused so much difficulty is dependent upon the sense in which it is used in this verse. It is a translation of the Hebrew word asah, a very common Hebrew word which is used over 2,500 times in the Old Testament. On more that 1,500 occasions it is translated ‘do’ or ‘did’. The word itself does not in any way explain what the person ‘did’ or what was ‘done’. As Dr. Young says, “The original word has great latitude of meaning and application. In verse 11 it means to make or yield fruit. In 2 Samuel 19:24 to dress (or trim) a beard.” Yet notwithstanding that this word has such a wide application, there has been a tendency to elevate its meaning in this Fourth Commandment to the equivalent of the word ‘created’. It necessarily means no such thing. It simply says that God did something and what God did on the six days can only be discovered by the context in which the word appears. One thing however is quite clear, the Fourth Commandment does not use the word ‘bara’ or create, or say that God created the heavens and the earth in six days.
The use of the word in the immediate context is illuminating:
If only the translators of the Authorized Version had translated the word asah in verse 11 in precisely the same way as they had the two preceding verses, the difficulties we have experience would possibly never have arisen. Its literal translation would then have read “For in six days the Lord did the heavens and the earth . . . and rested the seventh day”. We should then have asked what the Lord did for the six days, and why He rested on the seventh day. Instead of which it has been incorrectly assumed that during the six days He was creating the earth.
Further instances of the exceptionally wide meaning possessed by the Hebrew word asah, translated made, may be seen by reference to any good Hebrew concordance. In Brown, Driver and Briggs edition of Gesenius the following meanings are assigned to it: do, make, produce, yield, acquire, appoint, ordain, and prepare. It is therefore obvious that the word must be translated in the light of its context. Here are some translations of this word as they appear in the Authorized Version.
Genesis 18:8 the calf he had dressed.
It is obvious that in such an instance as Genesis 18:8 the word asah is not intended to convey the idea that Abraham either created or made the calf he was preparing for a meal.
There would have been no difficulty, for instance, if this word had been rendered in exactly the same way as did the translators of the Authorized Version over 300 years ago and as the Revisers did 250 years later, in the following passages:
Genesis 19:19 which thou hast shewed.
If the Fourth Commandment had been similarly translated it would have read, “For in six days the Lord shewed the heavens and the earth and all that in them is and rested on the seventh day.” What did the Israelites of that day understand by the Fourth Commandment? Surely this, that because God did something for six literal days and ceased on a seventh day, they too were required to work for six days and to cease on the seventh. There is not the slightest indication, or any impression that there had been some miracle of speed in creation, or that the Creator of the heavens and the earth had need of a day’s rest after six days’ work, or that the Commandment referred to six long geologic ages, or that the day of God’s cessation was also a correspondingly long geological period of time. Neither here nor anywhere else is there anything which would lead them to infer that all had been accomplished as in a flash, or that creation occupied a limited period of time, or that it relates to a second Creation or to six literal days of re-creation and a very long period for the seventh day. They accepted the plain and obvious meaning that God did something for six ordinary days and ceased on a seventh literal day. Read in the sense of its use in other passages in the same documents, the word asah would not convey to them the meaning of creation in six days, but of something done in six days.
If then God was not creating the heaven and the earth during these six days what was He doing?
The Genesis narrative considered in the next two chapters will help us to answer this question.
1. It may be mentioned that the length of the day in the remote past was, according to the
mathematical astronomers, little different to that of the present day. “The moon causes tides to
sweep round the earth in just under twenty-five hours. In the deep oceans little friction is caused by
such action; but in shallow seas tidal action causes much fluid friction, which leads to the dissipation
of energy as heat. This energy comes mainly from the earth’s energy of rotation, so that tidal friction
lessens the rate of rotation of the earth and therefore lengthens the day. Of course the effect is very
small. The earth has a vast stock of rotational energy; and, even though it has been calculated that
the tidal friction leads to a rate of dissipation of energy equal to some two thousand million
horse-power, the day is thereby only lengthened by 1/1200 of a second per century” (Scientific
Theory and Religion, p. 329).
Still another explanation- the vision theory- has been adopted to explain the ‘days’. It is said that the narrator had visions of each stage of the creation on each of the six days. This explanation at least has the merit that it does not involve the creation or re-creation of all things in 144 hours or use the word ‘day’ to indicate a long geological period. But can it be sustained? I think not in its present form, because one significant fact about this first narrative is that all the marks of a vision are absent. We do not read “I beheld”, “I saw”, etc. On the contrary, we read that “God saw”. The difference between a normal narrative and a vision may be seen when we compare this record with such a passage as Jeremiah 4:23-24, which has been used in order to illustrate verse 2, “I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. I beheld and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.”
The fourth theory is that which found favour with such scholars as Drs. Driver and Skinner and the moderate school of critics. Let Dr. Driver tell us in his own words that this theory is, “Genesis 2:1-3, it will be observed, does not name the sabbath, or lay down any law for its observance by man; all that it says is that God ‘desisted’ on the seventh day from His work and that He ‘blessed’ and ‘hallowed’ the day. It is, however, impossible to doubt the introduction of the seventh day as simply part of the writer’s representation, and that its sanctity is in reality antedated: instead viz. of the seventh day of the week being sacred, because God desisted on it from His six days’ work of creation, the work of creation was distributed among six days, followed by a day of rest, because the week, ended by the sabbath, existed already as an institution, and the writer wished to adjust artificially the work of creation to it. In other words, the week, ended by the sabbath, determined the ‘days’ of creation, not the ‘days of creation the week.”
The last of the theories on our list is not very different, it is that the Genesis narrative is mythological or legendary in character and does not warrant serious attention as a reputable historical document. This theory would merit critical scrutiny if a satisfactory explanation were given why it is written without mythological or legendary elements. Kautzsch, who is sufficiently critical of these early narratives, says, “it avoids all intermixture of a mythological character in particular, all thought of an evolution such as is usually bound up inseparably with the cosmogonies of ancient religions” (Hastings, Bible Dictionary, Vol. 5. p. 669). The idea popularized by Wolf two centuries ago, by which he endeavoured to explain all ancient stories as myths, has been generally discarded by scholars, though it sometimes reappears in surprising places. As Dr. Farnell of Oxford University says, “There has come in recent years, to aid both our sanity and our science, the conviction that the most potent cause of the type of myths just referred to has been the actual reality or historic matter of fact.”
verse 9. Six days shalt thou do (asah) all thy work.
verse 10. In it thou shalt not do (asah) any work.
verse 11. For in six days the Lord made (asah) the heaven and earth.
20:9 thou hast done deeds unto me.
20:10 that thou has done this thing.
21:23 kindness which I have done unto thee.
27:17 the savoury meat and bread which she had prepared.
Exodus 19:4 ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians.
23:22 obey His voice and do all that I speak.
24:14 thou hast shewed kindness.
32:10 the truth which thou hast shewed unto thy servant.
Judges 6:17 then shew me a sign that thou talkest with me.
2. “This identity even to small details (so far as is possible in so simple and condensed account) of
the written and geological record coupled with the fact that the fossil record merges without break
into modern times, can mean only one thing, and that is that the written account describes the record
of the rocks. The evidence all points against the interpretation that the geological record can be
dropped in between the first and second verses of the chapter. This theory was formulated over a
hundred years ago to fit in with the ideas of the time, and was not held by either Hugh Miller or Sir
J.W. Dawson who were in a better position to assess the value of the evidence than was Dr.
Chalmers in 1814” (A. Stuart, M.Sc., F.G.S., in Transactions of the Victoria Institute, 1937, pp.
105-6).
3. There are clear indications that long before the time of Moses or even Abraham, the seventh day
had a peculiar meaning in Babylonia. They observed the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st and 28th days of the
month, but in a very different way from that of the Hebrews. Other nations such as the Egyptians
used it and they certainly would not have borrowed it from the Israelites after Sinai.
Its recognition was so widespread that Josephus could write in the first century, “There is not any
city of the Grecians, nor any of the Barbarians, nor any nation whatsoever, whither our custom of
resting on the seventh day hath not come” (Contra Apion, 2:40). Obviously therefore it has a
universal and not merely a national significance.
Before it was known that the Babylonians kept a seventh day there were some who thought that the
seventh day’s rest of Genesis 2:3 was an isolated instance, and the remaining references to a seventh
day in the lives of the Patriarchs an accident. Now it is generally known that a seventh day’s
observance existed long before the Mosaic era, the testimony of Genesis is now generally accepted
that it was an institution from the beginning. Three-quarters of a century ago Dean Burgon clearly
showed that a seventh day’s rest was known to the Patriarchs.
Chapter 4 - Towards A Solution
